By ANN RICHARDS
Rebecca Fedewa, director of the Flint River Watershed Coalition, doesn’t want to sound Pollyannaish when she talks about the Flint River, but she believes things are looking up for the much-maligned Michigan waterway. In the past, the river served as a dumping ground for unregulated discharges by Flint-based industry. But that has changed.
“It’s not dangerously polluted — it shares the same water as our local lakes — and its fish consumption advisories are no different from most of Michigan’s rivers,” says Fedewa.
“And it is absolutely beautiful. People tend to think of the river in terms of downtown Flint, where the concrete flood channels and industrial brownfields make it very inaccessible. That tends to sully everyone’s opinion. But just upstream and downstream, there are miles of shoreline every bit as scenic as northern Michigan.”
The Flint River boasts miles of shoreline as scenic as northern Michigan. |
Running 142 miles from its headwaters in Lapeer County near Columbiaville, the Flint River is one of four that empty into the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest and most productive wetland ecosystems in Michigan. The river’s nearly 1,400-square-mile watershed is haven to more than 75 species of fish and lies within seven counties, fed by the Kearsley, Thread, Swartz and Misteguay creeks.
The Flint River Watershed Coalition was created in 1997 to “protect, preserve and improve the river” by pulling together a diverse group of concerned environmentalists, recreational users and grassroots organizations that had emerged at various points along its path. Incorporated in 1998, the organization now numbers more than 500 individual members. In 2008, it received a multiyear, $80,000 general purposes grant from the Mott Foundation.
“We want to bring the river back into people’s lives,” said Fedewa of the coalition’s recent, vocal efforts to call attention to the waterway and its potential as a developmental and recreational asset for the community.
“For a long time, a lot of us were working in silos — each group implementing its own agenda or watershed management plan. The coalition was involved in all the sub-plans, but as funding started to dry up, it made sense for us to take on more leadership.
“We created a task force, began meeting monthly with all our partners and now we’re all beginning to work differently. We’re building a choir.”
Since mid-2009, the coalition has been making a special effort to implement good water quality practices throughout the watershed, across city, township and county lines. The group is guided by a management plan assembled by the University of Michigan-Flint’s Center for Applied Environmental Research (CAER).
Rebecca Fedewa not only protects the Flint River, but enjoys it as well. |
“We want to become the ‘go-to’ organization when it comes to questions or concerns about the Flint River,” Fedewa said.
Over the years, the coalition’s loyal group of volunteers has quietly cared for the river, removing almost 30,000 cubic feet of garbage from its main channel and tributaries, recruiting and training more than 300 water quality monitors, and working with local schools to bring environmental education and awareness to more than 12,000 students in Genesee County.
Now a professionally staffed operation directed by a five-year strategic plan, the coalition claimed its public voice in March 2008, when it was one of several groups to approach the city’s Hamilton Dam Committee about the idea of replacing the dangerously aging, 87-year-old structure with a series of man-made cascades to control water flow. A site survey and development of conceptual design and engineering plans for the proposed “rock rapids” are now underway, says Fedewa.
“It was an opportunity to educate even more residents about the river’s potential. A huge chunk of what we do is education. We were able to lend our voice to the important role the river and the river trail play in terms of local recreation — and how the community might go about improving the safety and accessibility of the river by naturalizing its flow.”
Through its work with the dam committee, the coalition has strengthened ties with a number of organizations working on Flint River issues, in particular the Flint River Corridor Alliance, which works with government, non-profit and private sector stakeholders — including the Kettering and UM-Flint campuses — to direct their combined resources to make the Flint River a national example of urban river restoration.
“We’re the only environmental partner agency on the alliance board,” said Fedawa, who will become vice-chair of the organization in late 2009. Supported through CAER, the Flint River alliance operates five projects — including the Hamilton Dam Committee — that focus on the redevelopment of the downtown section of the river corridor.
“The result would have been completely different had we not become involved,” Fedewa said of efforts to replace “a big, ugly dam” with a more naturalized method of slowing the flow of the river.
The downtown section of the river is but one of several challenges that are of concern to the coalition. In the past, unregulated discharge by industries and municipalities and channelization contributed to poor water quality. While this type of pollution has decreased significantly in the past 30 years, “non-point source” pollution has increased. It is the number one threat to the health of the waterway.
A tranquil view of the Flint River. |
“In non-technical terms, its runoff,” Fedewa said.
Unlike pollution from industrial and sewage treatment plants, non-point source pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away sediments and natural and human-made pollutants, depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands and underground sources of drinking water. The most common of these human-made pollutants include fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides from agricultural fields and suburban lawns; oil, grease and chemicals from urban run-off; and bacteria and nutrients from livestock, pet waste and faulty septic systems.
Combating this type of pollution requires a trained and vigilant body of volunteers who can serve as the “eyes and ears” of the watershed and serve as stewards of watershed management plans, Fedewa says.
Over the next five years, in addition to its existing water quality monitoring and clean-up activities, the coalition plans to address the individual and community land-use options that affect the Flint River, helping communities develop economically while improving fish and wildlife habitat, expanding recreational opportunities, and preventing further degradation of water quality.
Fedewa is especially enthused about the coalition’s plans to promote a Flint River canoeing guide and increase the use of the Flint River Trail by hikers and bicycling groups.
“We want people to know there are lots of opportunities to enjoy the river. People love what they know, and we want more of them to know what an amazing amenity runs through our community.”
This story is a companion piece to the 2008 Annual Report